


open your heart and let the good stuff out

by augustfai



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Getting Together, M/M, Multi, Neighbors, cat owner felix, sylvain is a tragedy, uber driver felix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:55:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25553179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/augustfai/pseuds/augustfai
Summary: Sylvain and Felix have been neighbors for two years, and now Sylvain decides he has to do something to move their relationship further than just vegetable-giving and cat-sitting. Maybe. Probably. If he could just get over this hurdle of being stupidly ass over elbows for the dude.
Relationships: Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/Petra Macneary, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth, Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Ferdinand von Aegir/Dorothea Arnault
Comments: 28
Kudos: 182





	open your heart and let the good stuff out

**Author's Note:**

> The last time I wrote a fic was four--maybe five?--years ago, and here we are. Thanks FE3H (and happy 1 year + 1 day!) for getting me back into writing for fandom and flailing about aimlessly wondering if anything makes sense. I asked one of my betas if fic just got harder because we haven't written it in so long and she said no, it's always been like this. Christ on a bike, we do this willingly. Anyway: thank you so much to M and R for beta-ing, y'all are amazing! + M for always being there to trash talk Sylvain with me even though we LOVE HIM a LOT.
> 
> The title of the fic comes from Weezer's song _Smile._ FYI that the link to the art print in Sylvain's home is NSFW.

Sylvain is a world-class guitarist, but only in his dreams.

Consider: a man with a flop of ginger on his head and an electric lance buzzing between his hands, but the weapon is a guitar and the lightning is the music. In Sylvain's dreams, he is touring the world. He's living in Los Angeles, and he has all the palm trees he could ever want right in his backyard. He has a Sexy Car and lots of Sexy Women riding in it, on it, on him in it. He has Felix.

Felix is not a world-class guitarist in these dreams. Felix is yelling at him, telling him to turn down that shit on the radio. Felix is scowling at Sylvain's tattoo, even though he loves the way it sits on top of his muscles, real-live words humming with real-life blood and sound. Felix has two fat black cats scooped up in his arms and is telling Sylvain to move over on the couch to make room for them. Felix is stretching in his bed, stretching on the couch, stretching, spilling over into Sylvain's life wholly and without permission.

Dreams are dreams. When Sylvain wakes up, he's just a dude in an empty bed.

—

In real life, there is no Felix, at least not in Sylvain's apartment. Felix is just a neighbor, and even though they've lived next to each other for almost two years, Sylvain doesn't think he has the confidence to say that they're friends. It seems like Felix trusts him enough to get his mail when he’s away, and also cat-sit the two largest cats in the known universe. Sylvain gives him food sometimes. They have a good neighbor thing going.

But friends? They're not like that. At least, Felix isn't like any of Sylvain's friends.

"I'm gonna ask you again," Sylvain says to his friends now on his morning run, which is actually just more of a morning dog-dodging exercise. "Did you fuck her or not?"

"Sylvain, shut up!" Ashe is getting flustered. "It was our first date."

Sylvain dodges a Maltese. "I'm not sure I understand. You had a first date. And you didn't fuck?"

Someone coughs on another line. Dimitri has never really been into these morning conference calls because he's the only one who actually works out of his company's office most of the time and is afraid that someone will hear Sylvain (just Sylvain, he’s not worried about Ashe). "Sylvain, please calm down. You simply have a different way of expressing your...."

Sylvain jogs dog-free for a bit. "This pause is too long," he finally says. "Are my AirPods broken or are you just being weird?"

Dimitri sighs. "You tend to move fast, that's all. You can't expect everyone to move at the same pace."

"Okay, maybe, but—," Sylvain says, and waves to a lady with a tiny Shi Tzu. "Hold on. I have another call."

He taps his phone. "Hello? Mercedes, my favorite co-worker, is that you?”

"Good morning, Sylvain," Mercedes says, slightly singsong as always. She is the best co-worker Sylvain has ever had, mostly because she bakes a lot for the office and always saves some for him. "We have a meeting at eleven, don't forget. Have you finished the presentation? The clients will probably want to see a draft."

Sylvain hums. "No, I haven't finished it.” He does a little jump over a crack in the sidewalk. “Maybe I’ll come in to get it done.”

"Oh!" Mercedes laughs. "Was that all it took for me to get you to come to the office? Maybe I should call you every morning to remind you about our deadlines." Sylvain can almost hear her smile. "Also, I made some cheese tarts last night, and—."

"Oh, well, in that case I'm definitely coming in."

He taps his phone again back to the other call. "Hey guys," he says, now turning around to dog-dodge back home, "Gotta go. I have a lovely date at work this morning with some tarts."

"Isn't that just your life?" Ashe is still bitter about earlier.

"See you then," Dimitri says, and hangs up immediately.

—

The first thing Sylvain does when he gets back to his apartment is say thank you to his air conditioning for existing. Then he walks to his bathroom to take a shower, leaving a trail of running clothes – sweaty socks, sweaty running shorts, sweaty track jacket – from the door all the way into the depths of his admittedly small one-bedroom apartment.

Sylvain has brought a number of people back to his place, and all of them have said some variation of the same thing as soon as they realized it only took them 3 minutes to walk the entire length of it: _I thought you’d live somewhere…nicer_.

And Sylvain always feels like he should laugh and say yeah, me too. But the truth is that he loves his apartment. It’s not huge, and it’s not exactly new, either. He moved here right after college when he landed a public relations internship with his current firm, and they paid him just enough to find a decent apartment in a mostly concrete 10-story apartment building with a rooftop (but no penthouse) and a public pool (with no hot tub). His furniture collection is a mish-mash of hand-me-downs from his parents and IKEA items that Dimitri liked (meaning they went to the store together, Sylvain pointed at the things he wanted, and Dimitri picked them up without complaining). He has a little round dining table with two chairs, one of which is always occupied by his work bag or running shoes, depending on the hour of the day. He has a rug from okpricerugs.com. It’s a rich, dark blue, and looks much more expensive than its just-okay price.

Basically, he settled in and never thought to settle out. There was just no reason for him to; after he got hired, he realized how much money he was saving by living here. He was able to set up a good retirement plan and put away a nice-sized amount of savings each month. Who cared if there were cracks in the shower tiles? He just put his shampoo in front of them. Done and done.

Plus, this way Sylvain could be a fancy bitch without remorse. During his yearlong Weezer groupie phase, he bought a guitar, which he touched once and has never actually played. His bed is king-sized and takes up most of the space in a room that can barely fit it. He sleeps on Egyptian cotton sheets of the highest grade Giza 45, and he is an art collector.

Well, he has [ one piece of art](https://www.artsy.net/artwork/john-giorno-i-want-to-cum-in-your-heart-4). It hangs in his living room, and everyone hates it. But the colors are nice.

He’s happy here, for the most part. He has a good setup, a balcony overflowing with plant babies, and a parking spot. He lives within a 5-minute drive to Ashe’s place and Dimitri isn’t too far away, either. He’s been using his upstairs neighbor’s Wi-Fi for a year now, and the network still isn’t password protected.

But if he has to admit it – and he only will under duress, or under the influence of several glasses of wine and Dimitri’s sober gaze – he’s kind of lonely.

Okay. So maybe he’s actually really lonely. 

He’s started to hate the thick silence of his apartment when he comes back late at night after work happy hours. It’s almost sticky and overwhelming, the way he has to flick the lights on in every room just to feel welcome in his own space. He’s begun to talk to his plants even more than he used to under the guise that it helps them grow, but really he knows they’re probably sick of his voice. He’s even asked Ashe to sleep over more, except those days are probably over if everything goes well with this girl he’s seeing.

Worst of all, he’s started to dream about his neighbor Felix. 

—

When they formally met, it was because Felix asked him for help.

Sylvain hadn’t expected it—they’d lived next to each other for almost a year and Felix had never said a word. In fact, he always seemed so standoffish and surly; even if he was beautiful he didn’t exactly look approachable. And from the look on Felix’s face that day, it also looked like he didn’t really know what was going on.

They were both coming off the elevator, both on their phones as usual and about to enter their respective apartments when Felix had suddenly turned and thrust out his non-phone hand.

“Hey,” he’d said gruffly, and all Sylvain could do was stare dumbly at Felix’s hand. It was a pretty hand, with a callous or two, and he had a thick silver band on his index finger. “I’m Felix. Uh.” He’d cleared his throat then and had the gall to look a little irritated about not getting a handshake, so Sylvain limply returned it. “I’m going away for a few days, for work. Would you be able to get my mail and feed my cats? But only if they ask.”

Sylvain had not let up on being dumb. Instead of asking _are you sure_ or _why me_ he said, of all things, “Do your cats talk?”

Felix had frowned. “Cats don’t talk.”

“I mean, you just said…they’ll ask.” Sylvain’s mouth was dry. Here he was, completely sabotaging an opportunity to do something nice for his very gorgeous, very-easily-upset (or so it seemed) neighbor. “How do they ask?”

“Oh.” The corners of Felix’s mouth turned down even further. It was so cute, and also probably so bad for his skin wrinkle-wise, that Sylvain wanted to immediately reach over and smooth out the lines. “No, I mean, if they’re desperate for company or food they might go over to your balcony. Or you’ll hear them meowing a lot in the middle of the night.” There: the barest hint of a smile. “You’ll know.”

And so Sylvain agreed, even though he had never taken care of an animal in his entire life. He let Felix haul over a sizable bag of cat food to his door, and had accepted Felix’s mailbox key without hesitation. It was because he was kind, yes, but mostly he was still trying to process the whole thing. _Neighbor—favor? I’m helping my neighbor? Who has never talked to me? Do I look like a good person? Why is he asking me?_

A few days passed. Glenn, plump, and Rodrigue, even rounder, occasionally found their way onto Sylvain’s balcony, where they nibbled at his (non-toxic) plants and shoved their faces into the huge bowl of food he had left out for them. They meowed a lot, and Sylvain would step out to pet each of them as they circled his ankles and swatted at his hands. Eventually they would saunter away through the slats in the balcony divider back to Felix’s, only to return a few hours later yelling for attention again.

Sylvain wondered a few times if Felix was like his cats—if he’d gotten so lonely being in that one-bedroom apartment by himself that he’d reached out to a neighbor out of pure desperation.

Then he felt bad. Wasn’t he just projecting? Sylvain was the lonely one. Sylvain was so desperate for attention that he readily accepted a stranger’s request to look after his cats and get his mail for three days. If this were an Unsolved Mysteries episode, he would have been dead by now, and Felix would have been a mafia runaway.

But when Felix returned, he didn’t look beat up or mafia-ish at all, and Sylvain was still alive.

“Thanks,” Felix said, though it was more like a grunt—either because he was too proud to say thank you, or because he was holding a huge bag of cat food in one arm and Rodrigue in the other. He looked like a surly parent. “Did they give you any trouble?”

“Oh, none at all.” Sylvain smiled. “We had a lot of conversations about you, actually. I asked them what their owner is like, and they told me you have them on some kind of diet. And that you’re so unkind for not giving them more treats. They like me better, I think.”

Rodrigue meowed.

After that, Sylvain became Felix’s unofficial cat-sitter and mailman whenever he was away. It wasn’t often, but the more Sylvain got to see small bits of Felix’s life, the more interested he became. He started to—god, how fucking embarrassing—fantasize. He was beginning to feel like a cat, wanting attention but not willing to ask for it.

He bought cute kitty toys for Glenn and Rodrigue and left them treats on the border between his balcony and Felix’s. He laughed at Felix’s subscription to _Sword Collectors Monthly._ He started to share his co-op grocery box produce with Felix whenever he got extra items, and even sometimes when he didn’t get extra (“Oh, I just don’t really care for turnips, you can have them. No, really, not a fan”).

Sylvain wanted Felix to be his friend. That much was obvious. But a part of him, some strange, small part of him that he didn’t quite understand, wanted Felix to be more than his friend. Maybe not now, maybe later—but the desire was there. Sylvain understood desire, but he didn’t always know what to do with it.

So he decided to take it slow, which is not something he was accustomed to. Things—people—happened to Sylvain quickly. He was a one-and-done, wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kind of guy, and he had always been that way.

But he knew that wasn’t going to work here. He had to be strategic. Catch Felix’s attention. Give him things. Talk to him. He figured that eventually he’d just know what to do, or the feelings would fizzle out.

Only they hadn’t. They didn’t even flicker.

Time passed, and Sylvain and Felix had many conversations in passing about things like packages, the weather, their other neighbors, pets. The seasons changed, and Sylvain watched Felix’s everyday wardrobe change from black jeans and black linen t-shirts to light, windproof jackets and durable boots (still black, or at least gray). One year blurred into the other, and Sylvain still found himself giving Felix things “because I’m your neighbor, so I might as well share.”

And through it all, Sylvain fell even harder, and still knows absolutely nothing.

—

After his shower and a long, leisurely breakfast, Sylvain takes an Uber to work. It’s mostly because he's trying to be environmentally conscious, but also his Prius needs an oil change and a tire check and he really doesn't like going to the mechanic because it’s dirty and smells like gas. So that's that.

He's on the sidewalk, trying to decide if loosening another button on his shirt will make him seem edgy-casual or sleazy-slutty, when his smartwatch buzzes. He lifts his wrist, the other still preoccupied with his shirt, and squints at the display.

_Your Uber driver has changed! Be ready outside, FE is arriving in 2 min in a black Toyota Camry._

Ah, a Camry. Sylvain has had some good times in those cars. He can't remember all of them, but if he thinks hard enough, some of the blurry recollections had music in them — music he wouldn't listen to himself, which makes sense — and most of them were sweaty and involved little clothing. If there's anyone who knows how to fuck properly in a four-door sedan, it's Sylvain.

He undoes a second button. Casual-slutty. He can work with that.

FE turns the corner and Sylvain sees the unmistakable flat nose of a black Camry cruising his way. He waves a little bit; he can't see the driver's face, but the license plate matches the app and Sylvain has pepper spray anyway. It was a college graduation gift from Dimitri — "just in case you ever need it, because sometimes I worry."

The Camry stops right where Sylvain is standing. He opens the back door and sticks his head in.

"Hi," he says, and makes a mental note that the car smells good, which is always a comforting sign. "FE?"

FE nods, and then turns. 

And then Sylvain realizes FE is not just FE.

“I thought it might be you,” Felix says, and looks pointedly at the door. “Hurry up, I don’t want to block traffic.”

Felix has one long, beautiful ponytail that makes Sylvain think of waterfalls, and when he turns there’s a whiff of shampoo that reminds him of palm trees and a hand clutching at his tattoo and making out to quiet acoustic guitar music. "Felix!” Sylvain practically throws himself into the car. “I didn’t know you drove for Uber.”

Felix makes a left turn politely and efficiently, never once taking his eyes off the road. "I thought it might be you when I saw your name pop up, but I wasn’t sure. I guess Sylvain isn’t a really common name anyway.” He fiddles with the air conditioner for a second. “But don't you have your own car? Why are you using Uber?"

"I..." Perhaps now is not the right time for Sylvain to confess that he is a lazy piece of shit. "I lent it to my friend. He needs it today. For, uh, a date."

 _Thank you, Ashe_ , Sylvain thinks, _thank you and I hope you do get a second date._

"That’s nice of you." Felix curves around a roundabout like he was the one who wrote the plans for it. The road gives way only for him. "You’re going to the G. Mach building, right? Side or front entrance?”

"Front." Sylvain pauses. Every other time he’s taken an Uber to work, the driver usually drove around in circles for the last minute or so, trying to find the proper drop-off spot on a mismatched GPS. "Wait, do you know the building? Most drivers get really confused.”

"Yeah, I used to work there."

As Felix drives on, Sylvain’s mind feels itself swerving into unknown territory before suddenly veering into PR professional mode. “What a small world,” he says, flashing a prizewinning smile to hide the gut-wrenching jealousy taking over his insides. “Nice. Which company? The embassy on the third floor, or somewhere else?”

“Nah.” Felix pulls smoothly into another roundabout dotted with mini palm trees before cruising slowly to a stop in front of a building. “They moved out awhile ago. It was a gaming company and I did testing.”

He turns to look at Sylvain, and Sylvain inhales a little sharply. He knew about the gaming company, but the employees used a separate door that was closer to their office, so he never really saw anyone who worked there. If he’d come into the office more, or decided to switch it up and use the side entrance instead of the front—maybe he would have seen Felix. 

“That’s cool. I think I played one of their games a long time ago.” Sylvain gathers his things slowly, fully aware that he is taking up Felix’s precious time on the clock, but also fully aware that he needs to take advantage of this precious moment to flirt with his neighbor outside of their usual hallways and elevators. “Did you quit?”

“Sort of,” Felix begins, and turns back to the front. “I’m on a consultant basis now.”

“Gotcha,” Sylvain says, and swallows. His throat is dry. “Well—.”

Felix’s phone chimes at that moment. “I have to pick up another ride,” he says, interrupting Sylvain mid-sentence. “But maybe I’ll see you tonight.”

Sylvain nods, like a normal person would; inside, he is frantically telling his mind not to run away with Felix’s statement like he normally would on a Tinder date or just…any other time in his life. “Yeah,” he says, and grins. 

He can feel it. He can feel his mind running away with it.

“Yeah, you might see me. Because—you live next to me. Right.” _You are a fucking idiot_ , Sylvain’s mind screams at top volume. _Get out of the car because you suck at this._ “Anyway! Uh, I’ll give you five stars.”

Felix waves nonchalantly. “Thanks,” he says, with an air that suggests he doesn’t really care how many stars he gets. “Don’t forget anything.”

“Okay,” Sylvain says, and pops the car door open so wide he narrowly misses a bush. _You are a fucking idiot, part two._ But he keeps trying, because Sylvain is nothing if not a man who tries. “Ah, but, if I do forget anything, you can give it to me later.”

Felix turns again.

“Or,” he says, mouth turned down a little, “you could just not leave anything in the car.”

_You are a fucking idiot, part three._

—

It takes Sylvain a moment or two to remember why he’s at work, but then he remembers: the presentation. _The cheese tarts._

He heads upstairs, past the sleepy new receptionist with the green hair and rows of co-workers he’s never actually talked to, walking purposefully until he reaches his desk. There, he notices two things:

  1. No one has watered his plant in the time he’s been gone, so therefore, no one in any cubicle within a five-foot radius of his own is worth a shit;
  2. there is a lace-trimmed napkin in the middle of his desk, with a perfectly round, scallop-edged cheese tart sitting on top.



Next to it, there’s a pink Post-It with a note—

 _For you! There’s a little Tupperware in the fridge to take home. Share it with a friend!_ _♥_ _M_

Sylvain will not share Mercedes’ baked goods with anyone, but he appreciates the thought all the same, especially in his current state of complete and utter failure. He picks up the tart and takes a huge bite: _bless._ The cheese filling is sweet and melts on his tongue, the tart crust is buttery with just the right amount of crunch and softness, and there’s a little bit of jam in the center, too. If this were a video game, Mercedes would probably be a healer.

Energized again, he pulls his work laptop from his bag and settles into his chair (which thankfully still hugs his ass in all the right ways). The presentation is for one of his smaller accounts—a nonprofit organization that helps promote progressive candidates in conservative areas—and even though it’s not a huge source of revenue for himself or the firm, it’s a cause he actually kind of cares about.

Sylvain is good at his job. If there’s anything Sylvain knows well, it’s people—he understands what makes humans tick. When he was younger, he wanted to go into advertising; he loved looking at the billboards on the side of the road and the ones hung up on the walls in train cars. As he got older and read more—Sylvain read everything in his house he could get his hands on, from his dad’s history tomes to his brother’s supposedly hidden porn mags—he figured out how to turn those colorful ads he loved so much into words. He figured out how to use his words to make people believe in things, to make them happy or curious, and it was something he excelled at.

Now he’s one of the top account executives ( _the_ top, depending on which quarterly report you’re looking at) of the nonprofit arm of the firm. And he sort of hates to say it, but the work is easy. Words have never been difficult for Sylvain, and his clients trust that he will find the right ones to use for whatever goals they have. Need a guy to explain socialism in a tweet? Sylvain. Need someone to compare Candidate A to Candidate B in a thirty-second video script? Sylvain. Need a man who can crunch some numbers, strategize a pitch, and draft a presentation in two hours or less? Gautier: he’s got it.

So it doesn’t take him long to finish the presentation and send it along to the next person. Now that it’s out of his hands, he can go home and work remotely—or not work at all, probably—for the rest of the day.

But first: his Tupperware. The whole reason he came into work in the first place. He packs up his files, looks sadly at his plant, and walks over to the kitchen.

When he slides open the door, Dorothea is standing at the counter with a mug in hand.

“Sylvie, is that you?” she says, eyes wide after glancing up from the Nespresso machine. “Or am I seeing things?”

Dorothea is the head analyst in the research division of their public relations firm and joined the company at the same time Sylvain did. She is, as Sylvain likes to say to everyone but her, a whip-smart firecracker. After four years with the company, Sylvain is still just a lowly account executive, and Dorothea is out here running an entire team of entry-level staff.

She is also Sylvain’s ex. Their relationship didn’t last very long—a month tops, according to Dorothea, though Sylvain always likes to add a few weeks as a buffer, because who really knows when they broke up? (Dorothea does.)

“No, my fair lady, it’s really me,” Sylvain says, and winks. She rolls her eyes, but smiles all the same. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you.” He leans over to air-kiss her cheek. “How are you?”

“Well,” Dorothea says, raising her eyebrows, “perhaps if you came into work more, we wouldn’t have that problem. But I’m fine.” She pauses, and then breaks into a grin. “And I have a new boyfriend.”

It’s not often Sylvain gets to see Dorothea truly happy, especially since her dating life has always been a little rocky, but she seems that way now and he’s genuinely excited for her. “You’re wonderful, so of course you do,” he says, smiling. “So does he work here? Am I going to have to cover for when you guys have sex in the fifth floor relaxation room?”

“Sylvie, please.” She turns her head, but Sylvain still catches her blushing. “I wouldn’t touch that massage chair with a ten-foot pole.”

“Ah, well, that’s what you used to say about me, and yet I’m still in business.” He widens his smile, all teeth, as Dorothea turns away from him even more. “Seriously though, I’m happy for you. Tell me about him.”

It turns out Ferdinand (or Ferdie, as it slips out of her mouth a few times) does work at the firm, but in sales, which owns 3 floors of the building and is easily the biggest department. He’s also a ginger, though more on the orange side, and his hair is long and flourishing—“like a long novel, but one of the best novels I’ve ever read.” According to Dorothea, he is a modern-day prince: all charm and wonder, and so kind she can’t even comprehend it. (“Sylvie, he even went peach-picking just to make me fresh sorbet...he literally went to a farm _to pick the peaches_.” Her eyes are glittering.)

“And what about you?” Dorothea continues, face flushed, finally pushing the button to get her coffee going. “How are things on your end? I hope you’ve gotten checked for STDs lately.”

Sylvain coughs loudly. “Yes, I have,” he says, eyes darting to the kitchen doors, which are thankfully shut. “And I’m the same, thank you very much.” He pauses. “Except, I guess…”

Dorothea looks at him expectantly. “You guess what?”

“I, uh, have a crush on my neighbor,” he says, voice lower than usual, and clears his throat. “I kind of have for a while. But I’ve been thinking lately I should do something about it.” _Because I can’t stand being alone anymore._ “Because, you know, I’m bored, and he should be dating me.”

He laughs weakly: that didn’t land quite right, and Dorothea knows it. There’s a beat of silence that lasts far too long for Sylvain's liking, so he strides over to the fridge and sticks his face as far as it can go. He immediately spots the Tupperware from Mercedes on the second shelf, wedged between a cafeteria takeout box that's been there for a few days (probably from Caspar, the weird little dude in HR who always seems to be doing sixty things at once) and a small bottle of organic, full-fat sweet cream (Lysithea, one of the research interns, uses it in her coffee every morning).

"Sylvie," Dorothea finally says above the low rumble of the coffeemaker, "come out of the fridge, please. I can't imagine it smells very good in there, what with Caspar never throwing anything away."

She continues. "Why are you telling me this? Usually you’re not so—I don’t know, worked up about a person. You just sort of...do what you want.” The coffee starts to trickle into her mug. “Are you nervous about messing this up? That’s unlike you.”

Sylvain sticks out his jaw, indignant, but hell. Dorothea is right. It’s times like these Sylvain understands completely why she passed him so quickly at work: she is cool and intelligent, and he is a dumb bag of rocks.

“I understand this isn’t quite your thing,” Dorothea says, and Sylvain nods. He is trying so very hard not to melt into the floor from embarrassment. “Since you don’t quite go into relationships. I should know.” She smiles, but with no hint of malice.

“Dorothea,” Sylvain begins, though he’s not quite sure what to say.

"But I think," she says, still smiling, "this could be a good thing for you. You should just go for it and stop thinking so much, for once.”

She turns to leave, coffee in hand, but then turns abruptly. When she does, her skirt swishes and Sylvain catches a whiff of the same gentle perfume she always wore on their dates. “Oh no—did I overstep? You didn’t actually ask for advice.”

“That’s okay.” Sylvain sighs. “I need all the help I can get, I think.”

—

After his conversation with Dorothea, Sylvain feels a little lighter, but not good enough to call an Uber again. God, imagine. What if he got Felix again? He wouldn't be able to stay sane. He'd probably try to make stupid conversation and say something inappropriate like, "Want to know how many times I've banged in a car like this?" (The answer is fifteen.)

So Sylvain calls his favorite, personal rideshare instead.

“You’re lucky I work from home,” Ashe grumbles from the driver’s seat. Even though Ashe and Sylvain have been friends for almost ten years, and even though Sylvain has been in Ashe’s car many times, Sylvain still flagged Ashe down and slid into the backseat just like he’d done with Felix a few hours ago.

“Excuse me, can you please turn the air up? It’s a little stuffy back here.”

“Your giant red head is stuffy,” Ashe shoots back, but he diligently turns the air up a notch.

Ashe drives what most people call a “commuter car” – a little blue Nissan Versa. It’s not fast, and if you accelerate too quickly it makes irritable noises, but it gets from point A to point B efficiently and without fanfare. It has no sunroof, only a single USB port, and a built-in GPS: in other words, it’s practical. Pragmatic, even. Sylvain wouldn’t get down in the backseat of this compact thing like he would in a Camry. Most importantly, if he did that Ashe would flay him.

Sylvain stretches in the backseat and swings his legs over to get comfortable (and realizes that there’s a lot more room than he thought – maybe he _could_ get it back here, if he tried). “Hey,” he says, scratching at the exposed skin above his casual-slutty style statement. “You know my neighbor?”

“Uh,” Ashe says. “The one with the big butt and green hair? Or the dude you like?”

“The—?” Sylvain scrambles to stick his head into the center of the car, just like he did with Felix, but this time he’s not happy. “What do you mean?”

To Sylvain’s dismay, Ashe is deflecting. This could only mean that he found out in a terrible way and doesn’t want to remember it. “Well…there have been a few times you’ve drunk texted me, and…” he trails off. Shit, he’s thinking too hard. What the hell? What did Sylvain say in those texts? “They were very…not-safe-for-work. I don’t know if you were trying to text him, or you were sending me drafts and wanted feedback, but I deleted them.”

Sylvain drops his head into the crook of his elbow, which is bent against the driver’s seat. If Ashe drove this car into a lake right now he would be fine with it. He would unbuckle Ashe’s seatbelt and help him get free, and then he would serenely submit to his fate. It would probably feel better than this.

“Anyway,” Ashe goes on. “What about that guy? Did you—,” and here Sylvain can almost hear the stupid grin on his face, “—fuck him?”

Never mind. Sylvain would not help Ashe undo his seatbelt. He can do it his own damn self.

“No,” Sylvain mumbles, and sighs heavily as he pulls himself back into his seat. "I wish."

Ashe nods and doesn't push, even though Sylvain can tell he wants to. He'll probably ask later when they're all drunk.

On Fridays, when Sylvain doesn't have a work event and Ashe is free, they drink. It's been a tradition since Sylvain and Dimitri started their jobs and before Ashe started profiting off his blog; they'd make fancy cocktails and cheer Ashe up. When he finally did start making money and getting partnerships, they kept it up. It was a nice excuse to regularly make time to get together, especially since Sylvain did so many client events after-hours and Dimitri was always at the office.

Ashe tells Sylvain about his date instead, with this girl named Petra who recently moved into the city from a small country Sylvain has never heard of. "Her English is a little broken," Ashe says, "but nothing bad. She's actually pretty fluent. And so pretty," he sighs. "She has like, magenta-purple hair, and her eyes..."

He continues, and Sylvain doesn’t even feel like cracking his usual jokes—Ashe is beaming, just like Dorothea was earlier. Even after Ashe has toed off his shoes and made himself comfortable on the couch, after Sylvain has changed into his sweatpants and threadbare college t-shirt, after the first wine bottle is open and their first glasses poured—Ashe is still talking about Petra.

"You know what," Sylvain says quickly as Ashe pauses to take a sip of wine, "I'm kind of glad you didn't fuck her on the first date.” 

Ashe raises his eyebrows. 

“I mean, that would've been cool if that's what you guys wanted to do," Sylvain adds, "but also, it sounds like you really like her." He clinks Ashe's glass with his own. "I'm happy for you, man."

"Well, yeah, I'm smart enough to not take your dating advice," Ashe says, but toasts Sylvain's glass again with a grin. "Cheers."

It’s not long before the Tupperware of cheese tarts makes an appearance, because Sylvain has had a change of heart and feels like Ashe deserves one. Soon enough, after a brief discussion about whether or not Mercedes might want to be featured on Ashe's blog, they're down one bottle of white.

"—she's cute, I'm telling you," Sylvain says about Mercedes as he rolls off the couch to get them started on a second bottle. "You'd get so many likes."

"It's not all about the likes, Sylvain," Ashe points out. "Especially on Instagram. You can't even see how many people have liked your posts now. It's a train wreck. Come back, let me talk to you about algorithms."

Sylvain waves his hand in the air as he disappears into the kitchen. "Uh-huh," he says, "or you could just tell me now."

He pulls two Rieslings out of the fridge as Ashe launches into a long spiel about how the Instagram algorithm highlights some content above others, and how much this fucks him over. Sylvain makes reassuring noises every so often as he uncorks each bottle: one for now, and the other for immediately after now. Probably in 15 minutes, at this rate.

"—so now I have to start using IGTV to keep up with engagement—which I hate, because why would I do that if I could use YouTube instead? But Sylvain, I _hate_ YouTube—"

"I know," Sylvain says soothingly, cradling the bottles in his arm like children. "You've told me before."

He grabs a cheese tart from the Tupperware and takes a huge bite before heading back to the living room, where he hands one of the bottles to Ashe and sets the other on the coffee table. Ashe is still whining about how much he hates YouTube, and Sylvain nods understandingly as he chews and pours into their empty glasses.

And then, Sylvain thinks he hears a tap at the door.

He shushes Ashe in the middle of a rant about right-wing propaganda and points to the door. “Did you hear something?”

Ashe shrugs and shakes his head, but then they both hear it—another knock, this time a proper one, louder than the first.

“Sylvain?”

It’s Felix.

“Hey, are you in there?”

Sylvain almost drops his glass on the table. When he looks at Ashe, his mouth is a perfect _o_ ; Sylvain wants to laugh but he’s too busy panicking. He has no idea what to do. Should he open the door? He is literally wearing a t-shirt with a hole where one of the nipples is. “Hey,” he hisses at Ashe, who looks almost gleeful now, “take off your hoodie and let me wear it.”

“You won’t fit!” Ashe protests, but he tugs it off all the same, probably because this is pure entertainment for him. “Okay, but you have to pay for this if you rip it.”

“Coming,” Sylvain calls, as he stands and pulls the hoodie over his head; it _is_ too small and the sleeves don’t reach all the way down to his wrists but he just has to deal with it right now. He’ll buy Ashe another one, two, if he gets through this alive. In his heart he says a little prayer to a far-off Jesus that he doesn’t believe in, but he went to church once with a girl, so maybe that counts.

He takes a huge, huge breath and swings open the door.

Felix is standing there holding a small bag, wearing the same nondescript outfit he had on this morning in the Uber—jeans and a black t-shirt that is neither fitted or loose. He has his hair in that same whip-like ponytail, but it’s tied lower this time so that the hair curves round his forearm when he moves. There is nothing at all special about him right now, but Sylvain still manages to lose half his vocabulary just trying to meet Felix’s eyes.

“Hey,” Sylvain says, attempting to sound nonchalant, but it comes out breathier than he expected. “What’s up?”

Felix opens his mouth to say something, but then closes it and looks Sylvain up and down in a very obvious way, eyebrows furrowing. “You look…comfy,” he says, with the air of someone who would rather wear chains than Sylvain’s current outfit.

“Ah,” Sylvain says, realizing quickly that Jesus is not on his side just because he went to church once. “Yeah, one of my friends is here and we’re just having a few drinks. Since it’s Friday.” He crosses his arms over his chest and feels the back of the hoodie stretch to its limit. “It’s a tradition.”

“Hiiiiii,” Ashe says loudly from the living room. Sylvain can just imagine him waving an arm back and forth like a cheerleader, so he steps over to hopefully obscure him from view.

“I see,” Felix says. “Well, you left something in my car this morning—even though I told you not to forget anything—so I’m just returning it.” He extends the bag and lets it dangle off a few fingers, waiting for Sylvain to accept.

Behind him Sylvain can practically feel Ashe exuding curiosity and drunken giggles. He moves one hand behind him to pretend like he’s got a scratch, but flips Ashe off instead. “Sorry about that, I thought I checked.” He takes the bag from Felix and peeks inside: it’s an umbrella. Maybe it rolled out of his bag during the ride, when he was too busy causing Felix trouble in the backseat of a Camry.

It’s such a small gesture, but to Sylvain it feels so warm. He looks up and smiles.

“Thanks,” he says. “I could’ve just bought another umbrella, you know.”

Felix shrugs. “Other drivers don’t usually do this. I just found it after you left and kept it since I could give it to you later.”

“So,” he continues after a beat of heavy silence, shifting his weight on one foot, then the other. “That’s it. Sorry to bother you and your friend.”

He turns to leave, but Sylvain isn’t done. He is, in fact, just getting started.

 _Fuck it_ , he thinks. _Why not?_

“Felix, do you want—do you want a drink? You can join us.”

Behind him, he hears Ashe muffling a tiny scream into a throw pillow.

“I only have white wine,” Sylvain presses on, now filled with a badly shaken cocktail of fake courage and tons of adrenaline. “But if you don’t mind that, we can spare a glass.” He opens the door a little wider as an invitation. “We’re neighbors, right?”

Sylvain expects Felix to scoff. He predicts that, in the next second, Felix’s mouth will settle into a firm, annoyed line, and he’ll decline. He’ll shake his head, say he’s not interested, and simply walk back to his apartment. And that will be that. Sylvain will have to actually eat his turnips instead of giving them away, and he’ll never have to buy another cat toy again. He’ll be so embarrassed about burning this bridge that was barely a walkway in the first place that he would have to move in with Ashe. (Ashe would probably not let that happen, so Sylvain would end up being homeless.)

But then something funny happens—funny, but oddly familiar.

Felix runs one hand through the length of his ponytail and looks down. Above the low collar of his shirt, right at the dip of his collarbone, Sylvain sees a wave of the lightest pink rise then darken a shade, like a beacon. If he looks up in the next second, his cheeks would probably look the same way.

Felix is _blushing_. If a lightning bolt came down from the sky right this minute and pierced Sylvain in the chest, he would not die unsatisfied. 

“Um,” he says quickly, and laughs too loud, “you don’t have to if you don’t want to! I just thought—you know, it’s Friday—and—people drink! On Fridays!”

“Pleaaaase,” Ashe yells. “I am friendly!”

Felix shakes his head. “I can’t,” he mumbles, voice so low Sylvain has to take a step into the hallway to hear him. “I’m driving tonight—Fridays are good for Uber.” 

When he raises his head, he’s frowning and his cheeks are ruddy, like he’s been out in the cold. Sylvain wants to press his palms to them.

“Okay.” Sylvain smiles gently. Right now Felix feels like a little animal he has to be nice to so it won’t run away too fast. “That’s fine. We can do it another time.”

The pink on Felix’s face crawls towards his ears.

“Yeah,” Felix says, voice thick, and then clears his throat. He runs a hand through his ponytail again, which is something Sylvain has never seen before tonight and which he would like to have playing on loop in his mind, in his dreams. “Another time.”

When Sylvain closes the door behind him and walks—wobbling slightly—back into the living room, Ashe is also a spectacular shade of red. But it’s not as cute on him as it is on Felix.

“Do not say anything,” Sylvain says firmly, and tops off his glass of wine. “Don’t say it.”

Ashe bites his lip. “You are,” he breathes, trying to squash his giggles and not doing a very good job of it, “sooooo ass over elbows for this dude.”

“Like.” He isn’t finished. “Your ass is in the air. Your head is in the ground.” The giggles are coming in full force now. “You’re just—a big red ostrich.”

Sylvain takes a long swig straight from the bottle.

—

Once, on a chilly day in the thick of winter, Sylvain told Felix he liked his sweater.

Sometimes he would say those things just to get the attention of the person he was trying to get with at the time, but in this case he’d really meant it. It was a charcoal-colored, chunky-knit cardigan, slightly oversized but not so much that Felix—slim, but not skinny—was drowning in it. It had tortoiseshell buttons—big and shell-like; the kind you’d find in your grandma’s sewing box. His hair was up in a short ponytail, and he was as pale as ever.

“Hey,” Sylvain had said in the elevator as they were both going down. “Your cardigan is really cute.”

And then something unusual had happened: Felix flushed a bit, frowned, and slid his hands into the opposite sleeves of the sweater so that his arms were in a tunnel. He mumbled something that sounded like thanks, but Sylvain didn’t hear him say it because he was too focused on the slight pink that was suddenly crowding Felix’s cheeks.

The elevator stopped and Felix hurried out, hands still locked in their cardigan tunnel.

Shortly after that, every so often Sylvain would remember that flush, Felix’s cotton candy-dipped cheeks, the awkward but adorable way he hugged himself. And he would wonder—was Felix embarrassed? Did he not like compliments, or should Sylvain have used another word besides 'cute'? Was the cardigan itself something of a touchy subject?

Eventually Sylvain forgot about it. Time passed, and he got to know Felix a little better, so the new memories replaced old ones until eventually he could only think about measuring Rodrigue's food correctly and which vegetables Felix hated (most of them) and which ones he’d take (turnips and chili peppers). 

But now that he's seen that same reaction again—over an umbrella and a simple invite, no less—Sylvain is wondering. Wondering and thinking. And maybe even hoping, if just a little.

—

When Dimitri shows up, Ashe is wine drunk, reading aloud from the first volume of _The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ (Sylvain owns the entire collection). Sylvain himself is a little tipsy, but he makes it to the door in one piece after he hears three purposeful bangs: Dimitri's signature knock.

"Hi," Dimitri says, and steps past Sylvain. "Wow, you guys _reek_ of Prosecco."

"I promise you will too," Sylvain says, thankfully not slurring, and already going to the kitchen to pour Dimitri glass number one of many. "A lot has happened in the past hour. Then Ashe got into my bookshelf, so it’s all downhill from here.”

Dimitri follows him into the kitchen. "Sylvain," he says, leaning in to be heard over Ashe's narration, "why do you still have that....thing hanging up on the wall?"

He’s talking about Sylvain’s art collection, which is [ a single print ](https://www.artsy.net/artwork/john-giorno-i-want-to-cum-in-your-heart-4) hung on his wall above the couch.

“How dare you speak of my heirloom this way?” Sylvain frowns. “The Gautier children will thank me when they’re on their last legs and they have this to sell to get them back on their feet.”

“You want your future generations’ wealth to come from a piece of art—if it even is art—that says—?”

Sylvain waits, but Dimitri can’t bring himself to say any of the words on the canvas.

"No one has run away from me yet," Sylvain says, and hands Dimitri his glass, which contains a very generous pour. "At least, not because of that. Other things, yes." He pushes Dimitri gently into the living room. "Now drink. Oh, and have a cheese tart.”

In the living room, Ashe has the book open in one hand and his fourth glass of wine in the other. He has also fashioned what seems to be a toga out of the throw blanket, but it’s really just hanging precariously off one of his shoulders. “’Religious controversy is the offspring of arrogance and folly,’” he says—no, orates. “’True piety is’…uh…” He squints down.

“‘Most laudably expressed by silence and submission,” Sylvain finishes, holding up his glass high above his head as he half-steps, half-hops into the living room. “’Man should not presume to scrutinize the nature of God.’” He takes a big drink. “And that’s why I’m fucked!”

Ashe cheers.

Dimitri takes one short look at the whole scene and then moves towards the balcony. “Well, this seems fun, but I’m going to look at the plants,” he says to no one in particular. “I want to see the cuttings from Dedue. If they’ve grown I should send him a photo.”

“Oh! They’re doing really well,” Sylvain says, quickly walking over to slide the door open. In the background Ashe narrates on. “Take lots of pics!”

Dimitri smiles, bright and brilliant; Sylvain has always thought that Dimitri would make a wonderful prince just based on that. “I’ll send it to Byleth, too.”

They step onto the balcony, and Sylvain flips on the light. Instinctively he glances over to his right, to Felix's balcony — but it's as empty as always. Rodrigue and Glenn are probably having their dinner inside, smushing their faces into bowls of wet food.

"Wow," Dimitri breathes, and Sylvain turns his attention back to his friend. "They really do look nice." He pulls his phone out of his pocket and focuses the camera on a row of tiny succulents lined up in individual pots along the back wall of the balcony. One of the pots is a tiny Bulbasaur, with the succulent growing out of its back — both gifts to Sylvain on his birthday. The Bulbasaur was from Byleth, Dimitri’s girlfriend; the succulent from Dedue, Byleth and Dimitri's housemate and a mutual friend from college. It had been a little baby leaf of a thing just last month, but had since grown into a proper plant with rosy-hued edges.

"So tell me," Dimitri continues as he turns to take more photos of Sylvain's overabundance of spider plants. "Who is this neighbor you're in love with?"

"Oh my god _shut up_ ," Sylvain hisses. He can see Dimitri holding in a laugh—he knows exactly what he's done. "I am surrounded by neighbors!"

"Yeah," Dimitri agrees. "So which one is it?"

Sylvain juts his chin towards Felix’s balcony. “That one. Moody looking, black hair.”

Dimitri nods deeply like he knows exactly who Felix is, like he's known Felix all his life. He takes a small sip of wine, then leans against the balcony railing, looking at Sylvain all the while. For all of Ashe's straightforward simplicity (which Sylvain does appreciate, even if Ashe eats all his food), Dimitri always thinks everything through as if it’s a great, complex issue. Maybe it was his upbringing. He had been trained from a young age to go to the best boarding schools, have top grades, and take over the Blaiddyd empire of companies, and by the time Sylvain met him in college he was well on his way to achieving everything that had been laid out for him.

But Dimitri was never a snob, especially not to Sylvain. No matter how many times Sylvain ranted, sober or not, about a girl who just dumped him or a boy in his history seminar who wouldn’t give him the time of day, Dimitri always listened. For the entirety of their second semester of senior year, when all Sylvain did was write his thesis day and night, Dimitri was always there to help Sylvain untangle an idea or read a revised chapter. Never once did he complain or say he couldn’t; even when he was ridiculously busy (which seemed to be all the time), he made time for Sylvain.

Sylvain thinks – no, he knows – Dimitri is the best person in the whole world. He’d be able to point Sylvain in the right direction.

“I got a heavily misspelled text from Ashe and a screenshot of an ostrich,’” Dimitri says after several minutes of silence. “But it just seems strange to me since you’re being unusually...careful. Why is that?”

Without thinking, Sylvain brings his glass up to his mouth, but it’s been empty for awhile. “I guess,” he mumbles. “I just…don’t really know how I should act around him.”

“I don't recall any moment prior to this one where you were ever second-guessing talking to someone you wanted to be with.” Dimitri reaches out to play idly with a leaf. “I’ve never seen you hesitate before, so I’m not sure what the problem is. You’re not normal when it comes to dating, but you have confidence. People like that.”

Sylvain shrugs, only slightly stung. “This just…feels different,” he says lamely.

“Different,” Dimitri echoes. He takes a small sip of wine. In certain swathes of moonlight, the glass balancing delicately between his fingers looks like a glowing orb. “Different because this time, you actually care about the outcome?”

“No,” Sylvain says reflexively, because feelings are the Devil. But he deflates quickly. “Well—maybe. Okay, yeah.” He digs one palm into the skin between his eyes, trying to physically drag sense out of his brain, which feels fuzzy and static-y like an old television that’s been left on for too long. “I like him, Dimitri. I don’t know why, but I want this to work.”

It’s that time of the night where the wine is speaking for Sylvain, but it’s at least speaking the truth. He’s the one blushing now, furiously and deeply, but in the dim light it’s at least not so noticeable. “I—dream about him sometimes. And it’s nice. I want it to feel nice in real life, too.”

When he looks up again, Dimitri’s smile is huge. He seems ridiculously happy, for whatever reason.

“This is a wonderful side to you, Sylvain,” he says, and toasts Sylvain’s empty glass with a loud and merry _ding_. “I wish I could see more of it.”

Sylvain frowns. “Hey, Blaiddyd,” he says. “Are you saying I’m not always brutally honest?”

Dimitri laughs a little. “You have your moments,” he says. “But you’re like—you’re like a cactus.”

“A cactus,” Sylvain repeats, and looks down at their feet, where a neat row of mini cacti are lined up against the base of the balcony railing. Each one sits in a different colored pot, and they’re arranged by size, smallest to biggest. “You mean these cute spiky dudes?”

“Uh-huh. They remind me of you,” Dimitri says, fishing for his phone again to take another photo.

“Because...they thrive in difficult climates?” Sylvain offers as he leans down to pick one up. “Blooms pretty flowers when you least expect it? Slim in all the right places?”

Dimitri tilts his head and looks at Sylvain sideways. “No, none of those things,” he says, and aligns his camera to take a close-up of the mini cactus settled in Sylvain’s palm.

“It’s because they’re soft on the inside and prickly on the outside,” he clarifies, as the flash goes off and Sylvain squints. “That’s how you always are. But you don’t have to be—look at you right now. It would do you good to just be softer more often.”

Sylvain reflexively places a hand over his tummy. “I hope you don’t mean here,” he says. “These rock-hard babies don’t carve themselves, you know.”

Sighing, Dimitri reaches over and moves Sylvain’s hand from his stomach up to his mouth.

“I meant soft _here,_ ” he says, and pats his hand for good measure.

—

After a mini plant photoshoot and a few more glasses of wine, Dimitri is curled up in Sylvain’s bed for the night and Sylvain is attempting to fold himself into a ball on the other end of the couch from Ashe. He didn’t ask for this sleepover – especially since Ashe and Dimitri have the only proper blankets in his house, so he has to make do with a hard throw pillow and a fitted sheet that is _not_ Giza 45 Egyptian cotton – but he doesn’t really mind all the same.

But he still can’t quite sleep. He keeps thinking about Dimitri telling him to be softer.

What exactly does that mean? Is he supposed to go over to Felix’s and open up his heart completely? Poor Felix would probably jump out the window to escape. First of all, Sylvain’s heart is probably too huge to fit in a one-bedroom apartment; secondly, it’s behind a glass case because he’s fragile and doesn’t want to risk a full-fledged relationship if he’s just going to get hurt in the end. He’s seen it happen too many times, has sat with Ashe while Ashe cried post-breakup too many times, has helped Dimitri pick up the pieces with Byleth before they got to where they are now. He’s not quite willing to break it open, even if he would give so much to be held right now, if just for a little while.

Or maybe…not just a little while.

Sylvain turns so that his face is pressed into the couch. Here he is, mostly successful and surrounded by friends after a fun night, and yet he still feels like there’s some unfinished part to this puzzle. Maybe it’s Felix. Maybe it’s the complete unknown of a future that contains Felix as something more than just Sylvain’s neighbor. Maybe it’s the way Sylvain’s heart thuds when he thinks about what that sort of future could look like: the lights on at home after work, a warmth in his sheets that won’t leave after just one night, cats purring on his lap, Felix purring in his arms.

He turns over again and blinks, adjusting to the darkness. Soft, he thinks. Okay. What is that? Blankets are soft. Cats are soft. Cookies are soft.

 _Cookies._

Sylvain raises his head a bit and looks at Ashe, who has one leg thrown over the couch arm and is snoring loudly.

—

In Sylvain’s dreams, he is in love.

When all is said and done, when the lights shut off and the fans go home and his guitar is asleep somewhere safe and sound in its case, Sylvain is home in the arms of a gorgeous man with a whip of a ponytail. Felix is a swathe of shampoo-scented mystery in Sylvain’s home, and the road here is blurry and a distant memory, but there is all the time in the world to figure out those hows and whys, those wheres and whens. In love, there is always time. For his rather bleak outlook on the world Sylvain does truly believe that.

Outside the window the palm trees are violet shadows. The sun is down and the ocean is a blanket pulled over the sand. In Sylvain’s dreams, Felix says things like _you’re five stars to me_ and _can you get a second tattoo with my name on it._ He finds Sylvain’s hand and holds it in his own like a gem. He breathes deep when Sylvain tickles the skin underneath Felix’s thin shirt, asking or warning, telling or singing.

Sylvain wakes up to the gentle sounds of morning: Dimitri fiddling with the coffee maker, Ashe whimpering about his headache, the blinds brushing open. But he hides his head under the blanket and tries to go back to sleep, to that dream, to a world where everything is already perfect.

—

“Cookies?” Ashe swirls the mimosa in his cup and yawns widely. “Don’t you think cookies are kind of…basic?”

Sylvain is crushed. Not only did Ashe just insult his idea, but he called it _basic._ He turns to Dimitri for help—being soft was _his_ idea, after all—but Dimitri is too busy trying to adjust his pajama top, which was borrowed from Sylvain and is far too tight on him. One of the buttons is screaming for help.

“I mean, everyone gives cookies, homemade or store-bought. I don’t think it says much, especially since you actually _like_ him.” Ashe drags out the word ‘like’ and Sylvain wants to throw the rest of the bottle of orange juice at him, but he can’t—Ashe is helping him. He has to be nice. “What about banana bread?”

At this, Dimitri perks up. “Dedue makes wonderful banana bread.”

Ashe nods enthusiastically. “He gave me his recipe to put on the blog and it’s still one of the best-performing posts. Plus I think it’ll be easier for you to make on your own.”

“On my own,” Sylvain echoes, and pours too much champagne into his glass (on purpose). “Wait, but—Ashe, can’t you help me? I don’t bake and I don’t want to poison him, since I…” He takes a deep breath, “… _like_ him.”

“It wouldn’t mean anything if I did it for you,” Ashe says, and plows on when he sees Sylvain start to pout, “and I _would_ end up just doing it for you, because I wouldn’t be able to stand watching you measuring things.” He shudders a little. “I will never forget that one time you dropped half the eggshell in the flour mixture when we made Byleth’s birthday cake.”

“She said she liked the crunch,” Sylvain points out, but Ashe is no longer listening.

They spend the rest of the morning cleaning Sylvain’s apartment (because there is wine _everywhere,_ for some reason) and rearranging his bookshelf (because after flipping through every single volume of _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ , Ashe had gotten into Sylvain’s leather-bound and gold-trimmed _Complete Works of William Shakespeare_ ). By the time they’re done, it’s like Ashe hadn’t sloshed half a bottle of Prosecco onto the carpet while going on and on about the light doth yonder window break.

Dimitri looks very proud, even in a faux crop top with buttons bursting. “What a productive day already,” he says, wringing out a cloth in the kitchen. “When I go back maybe Byleth and I will go to the gym.”

On the other hand, Ashe looks a little gray. “I think,” he says, and sits down on the couch. “I need to go home and just…sleep.”

“Hey, man,” Sylvain says, “you look super hungover. Why don’t you just stay here?”

Ashe shakes his head vigorously. “I can’t rest in a place that once reeked of Prosecco and now smells like we are inside a bottle of Lysol,” he says, and stands, if a little shakily. “Dimitri, do you need a ride? You biked here, right?”

“I did,” Dimitri calls from the bedroom where he’s changing out of Sylvain’s pajamas (which are now very stretched out) and into his clothes from the night before. “But Byleth and I can just come by later to get my bike. I’ll drive you home.”

Ashe tries to protest but just nods a little. Sylvain, not very helpful but always trying, hands him a bottle of water and a peppermint.

After they’re gone, Sylvain flops on the couch and pulls out his phone, scrolling through old messages before he finds what he’s looking for: a link to _A Knightly Meal,_ Ashe’s food blog. Luckily for Sylvain and all of Ashe’s followers, the site has a sidebar with the most popular recipes, and the first one—“Recipes From Friends: Banana Bread Fit for a King”—is exactly what Sylvain is looking for.

The link leads to a blog post filled with professional-looking photos of Dedue’s strong and capable-looking hands peeling and mashing gross-looking bananas on a marble countertop, which is really just a big slab that Ashe bought at a discount home goods store. After all instructions, there’s a nice shot of Dedue and Ashe holding up two slices of perfectly caramelized, pillowy-looking banana bread. Ashe is mid-laugh, holding up a fork, and Dedue has a little crumb on his chin but is smiling widely.

“Look at these two cute dudes baking bread,” Sylvain mumbles to himself as he takes a screenshot of the ingredients list. “No wonder this is the most popular recipe on the site.”

Later that day, he heads out to buy bananas.

—

Sylvain thinks about baking banana bread for two whole days. On the third, he watches pastry chefs bake banana bread on YouTube for two hours, then forcefully stops himself from buying a stand mixer just for a single recipe that doesn’t even require one. On the fourth, he peeks at his bananas in the pantry and breathes a sigh of relief to see them faded from green to yellow. Just a few more days and they’ll be ready to turn into bread, and Sylvain will be ready to turn soft himself, or whatever Dimitri was getting on about.

On the fifth, he calls his friends.

“Did you bake it yet?” Ashe asks over the phone as Sylvain stretches on the sidewalk in front of his apartment complex. They’re on another morning conference call—something Sylvain has been looking forward to all week, because _God_ does he need another run.

“No,” Sylvain says, doing pretend jumping jacks to warm up a bit more. “The bananas are just ripening. So maybe another few days.”

“Dedue made that banana bread yesterday,” Dimitri says brightly. “I hope yours comes out as good as his always does.”

“It won’t.” Sylvain adjusts his AirPods before taking off slowly, down through the slope leading away from his building. “I almost accidentally bought baking soda instead of baking powder. And I can’t promise there won’t be a nice eggshell crunch in the finished product.”

Ashe groans. “Sylvain, _please_ at least make something edible so your neighbor doesn’t die.”

“What if he’s allergic to bananas?” Sylvain says, panicked, then waves cheerily at a woman running opposite him with a chocolate Labrador at her heels. “What if he dies by inhaling banana pollen?”

Dimitri hums. “I don’t believe that’s a thing.”

“It’s not.” Sylvain hops over a crack in the sidewalk and glances both ways before cutting across the street. “I’m just,” he starts, and then pauses again to avoid running into a pug on a long leash, “nervous, I guess. Like, forget banana pollen, what if he just doesn’t like it? What if he never talks to me again?”

There is silence for a bit over the line, and for a few long seconds all Sylvain hears is Dimitri’s quiet typing and Ashe’s faucet turning on, then off.

Finally Ashe speaks up. “Sylvain,” he says. “I know I was drunk when Felix showed up at the door, but I still…I don’t know. I saw the way he got all red when you asked him to come in. I don’t think someone who has that kind of reaction would hate you over banana bread, even if there are eggshells in it.”

“And think of what else could happen besides the scenarios you’re worrying about,” Dimitri says matter-of-factly. “What if instead of hating you, he’s appreciative? Even if he doesn’t like it, the gesture is still friendly. It’s a nice thing to do for a neighbor.”

Sylvain jogs steadily up a hill and nods before remembering his friends can’t hear him. “Yeah,” he agrees.

“But I don’t want it to _just_ be a neighbor thing,” he says, and breaks into a sprint.

—

Dinner that night is simple and spent alone. This is how Sylvain often eats when he’s not at a work function or a happy hour: by himself, on the couch, with the bowl or the plate balanced on his lap. He doesn’t use his kitchen table for anything other than work and storage, and prefers to lounge in front of the television for hours even after he’s done eating. If there’s one thing Sylvain knows he can do with another person, it’s Netflix and chill because he’s had so much practice with himself.

Tonight he’s barely taken one bite of his single-serving, microwaved lasagna when he hears a sharp knock. He has no idea who it is. Ashe has a date with Petra tonight, and Dimitri always calls or texts him before he comes over. Could it be Miklan? No, his brother hates him too much to show his face.

Curious, Sylvain pads over to the door and looks through the peephole.

Felix is looking back at him.

Sylvain stumbles backwards and puts his hands on his knees. “Fuck,” he half-whispers, half-yells, and then curses himself knowing Felix probably heard him say that. He takes one deep breath, then another, and straightens up. _Calm down goddammit,_ his mind is screaming. _Calm down. Open the door!_

At least he’s wearing a normal t-shirt today.

Sylvain takes one final, long breath just for good measure, then undoes the chain on the door and opens it just wide enough for his head to pop through. “Yo,” he says, and smiles in a way that he hopes is normal and not serial killer-y. “Not driving tonight? What’s up?”

It’s a balmy night, and Felix has on his usual uniform of black jeans and a black t-shirt with a slight v-neck with just enough of a window so that Sylvain can see the bump of his collarbones peeking out. “No, I don’t usually drive on weekday evenings,” he says. His eyes make contact with Sylvain’s for a second before quickly looking elsewhere, like it was an accident.

He looks visibly uncomfortable and Sylvain is suddenly worried: what if there’s something wrong with him and he needs help, but can’t say it? What if he’s _actually in the mafia like Sylvain feared_ and is now running away?

Or maybe not. But he’s not moving, or saying anything else, even though it looks like he wants to run away or blurt out a monologue. It just seems like he can’t decide which would be the better option.

Well, fuck it. Sylvain will just decide for the both of them.

“You wanna hang out?” he says in a rush, so it comes out more like _youwanhangow,_ and opens the door wide. “You can make up for last week when you had to drive and couldn’t have a drink.”

Felix’s eyes, dark as the clothes he’s wearing, flit up. Something in Sylvain’s chest feels like it’s suddenly lost gravity and is spiraling into space.

“Really?” he says, and then seems embarrassed to have said it. He clamps his mouth shut, and— _yes_ —Sylvain starts to see that now-familiar line of pink creep upward from the v-neck to Felix’s ears and the apples of his cheeks. It’s not as pronounced, but it’s there. By now Sylvain feels like Felix’s blush is an old friend.

“Yeah, really,” Sylvain says, and motions for Felix to come in. “You can sit on the couch. And uh, don't mind my lasagna, I was just about to eat.”

Sylvain steps into the kitchen, but looks behind him to make sure Felix hasn’t run away and is relieved to see that he actually did come into the apartment. He’s slipping his shoes off right by the door, looking mostly down but when he does look up, he seems surprised by everything in his field of vision: that Sylvain is in the kitchen. That there is a couch. That there is a plate of untouched lasagna on it. That—

“Can you,” Felix says, each word sounding slightly strangled, “explain that—piece of—I don’t even know—hanging on your wall?”

“Oh,” Sylvain says slowly, reaching up into his liquor cabinet to grope for something that is not white wine. “The [ print](https://www.artsy.net/artwork/john-giorno-i-want-to-cum-in-your-heart-4)? It’s a family heirloom.”

“Is your family okay?” Felix continues, walking into the living room to get a closer look at it. His forehead is wrinkled, but he also seems somewhat fascinated. 

“No,” Sylvain says, and means it. “Do you drink whiskey?”

“Yeah,” Felix says, and sits on the edge of the couch closest to the balcony. “Oh—you have plants?”

Sylvain can’t help but laugh a little. “Yeah, and your cats are obsessed with them.” He opens his freezer for some ice. “You can go on the balcony and look if you want.”

As he pours the whiskey into two glasses filled with ice, he hears the sliding door open, then shut a few seconds later. Once again he’s surrounded by silence, just like he had been all day save for his music or the background noise of the TV, but this is different—this is the kind of silence Sylvain would like. It’s just a moment, not a lifetime. He knows what lies beyond it.

When he steps back into the living room, glasses in hand, Felix is still on the balcony and Sylvain can see his crouched figure looking at the row of mini cacti. There is his ponytail, long and lithe, resting against the middle of his back; one of his hands is on his knee. The other is outstretched, reaching for one of the little pots—a blue one.

Sylvain walks over to the balcony and opens the door with his foot.

“Felix,” he says quietly

Felix pulls back his hand like he just touched fire. “Sorry,” he mumbles, and turns.

“What about?” Sylvain hands him his glass. “If you want to pick it up, you can. They’re not fragile.”

 _They’re cute and spiky,_ he thinks, watching Felix, _and soft on the inside._

“Why do you have so many of these?” Felix says, finally reaching over to pick up the cactus. He holds it in his palm, where it fits perfectly. “I mean—you just have a lot of plants. Most people just have a couple.”

Sylvain takes a sip of his whiskey and leans against the screen door. “Probably for the same reason you have cats.”

“Glenn and Rodrigue?” Felix is still examining the cactus, inspecting every inch of it. “I rescued one of them, so I didn’t really have a choice. The other one came after so he could keep the first one company.”

Sylvain nods, looking down at his glass and not at Felix. “Yeah,” he says. “Well, I got my first plant from a friend, and it didn’t feel right having it out here all alone. So I got another one. And then that friend gave me more and more plants. And now we’re in a jungle.”

Felix snorts and puts the tiny pot back on the concrete as gently as he picked it up. “Sounds like you have issues,” he says, but not with much bite. He stands carefully and takes a tiny sip of his drink.

Here they are: two dudes on a balcony. Sylvain has been in this situation before many times, whether it was this very space or someone else’s, or the rooftop of a club, or some tropical veranda on an island in the sun. But this time it’s not quite the same. For one, he doesn’t know if Felix actually wants him the same way or if he’s just here because he’s bored and Sylvain came on too strong to say no. And second, Sylvain is sober, fully clothed, and really hungry because he didn’t actually get to eat dinner.

“Did you eat?” Sylvain asks. “I sort of left my lasagna alone and it’s really cold now, so if you wanna…stay, we could order a pizza or something.”

In his heart, Sylvain begs God, Buddha, baby Jesus, anyone, to help him out. _Hello anyone who’s listening,_ he thinks, biting his lip as he waits for Felix’s answer, _I know I’ve been a huge slut but I’m still a decent dude. Right? I haven’t disrespected anyone. I always ask for consent. I donate 7% of my salary to charitable causes. Please god pleaaase. I even send checks to my brother to help him out even though he’s a huge d—_

“It has to be the meat lover’s one,” Felix says.

Sylvain almost drops to his knees in gratitude.

“No pineapple?” he tries, hand on the sliding door.

Felix glares. 

—

For several nights after pizza night, Sylvain wonders if it really happened. It all seemed too good to be true: they ordered a meat lover’s pizza, Sylvain talked about how pineapples actually accent the saltiness of the cheese, Felix looked absolutely disgusted but then asked for another drink. He even stayed to watch half of a bad action movie, but Sylvain can barely remember that part of the night. He was still so tripped up on the fact that Felix was _in his apartment,_ sitting _on his couch,_ making snide comments about how the fight scenes in the movie were grossly inaccurate.

And he’d even commented on Sylvain’s tattoo.

“What is it?” he’d said, folding up the pizza box to toss it in the trash. “Your tattoo.”

He seemed a little pink, but Sylvain didn’t know if it was from the alcohol or because he was talking about Sylvain’s skin.

“It’s a quote,” Sylvain said, wiping down the kitchen counter that he’d already wiped five times. He just didn’t want to leave the kitchen as long as Felix was there. “You want to hear it?”

Felix bent the box slowly and raised his eyebrows. “Am I going to judge you for it?”

Sylvain laughed. “People have judged me for worse,” he says. “But it says ‘no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” His hand stilled on the counter. “Nietzsche. It’s part of a longer quote, about how people will be lonely and scared in the world, but you always have to stay true to yourself.”

In the few quiet seconds that passed, Sylvain had placed a hand instinctively where the words are—underneath his belly button, right above where his underwear usually sits. That Felix saw it meant he was looking there, at that patch of skin that shows only when Sylvain stretches or reaches for a higher shelf. Thinking about it made him want to curl up into a ball and die a little bit.

“That’s surprisingly sappy,” Felix finally said, but more as an observation than an insult. “So does that mean you’re lonely and scared?”

Sylvain hummed. He thought about it, scratched at his tattoo, and then took a deep breath.

Then he looked at Felix and smiled.

“Nah,” he’d said, winking. Then he nodded at the pizza box. “Just bloated.”

—

The next few nights Sylvain sleeps like a brick, blissfully and without dreams. He doesn’t even feel the vibration of his phone under his pillow one morning and misses two calls from Dimitri.

“Dedue was at the garden center by your place and left another cutting for you,” his voicemail says. He sounds a little out of breath and Sylvain can hear wheels swooshing in the background and the sound of birds—he probably called while on a bike ride with Byleth. “He said he left it in front of your door.”

Sylvain rolls out of bed and yawns hugely as he shuffles his way to the front of his apartment. It’s a little early, too early for his run and hours away from when he usually logs in for work. Dedue must have gone to the garden center right when it opened so he could avoid crowds.

He opens the door slowly and stops when he feels the edge of it hit something. Peering out, he sees the curve of a standard clay pot and the faint sway of broad, dark green leaves striped with pink.

It’s not a cutting—it’s an entire plant. Sylvain bends over to pick it up and to pluck the note that Dedue had left tucked in between two leaves.

 _Hello Sylvain,_ the note read in Dedue’s stocky, yet somehow elegant, handwriting. _This is for you. I had received some information on your current situation from Dimitri._

Sylvain doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry when he reads the last sentence:

_This is a prayer plant. It is safe for all pets, including cats._

—

In his dreams, Sylvain is a world-class pastry chef specializing in banana bread. He’s touring the world, giving demonstrations to bread guilds and banana clubs. He’s got a whole warehouse of bananas in various stages of ripening. He has a really shiny, very beautiful stand mixer sitting proudly in his kitchen.

In real life, his first attempt is an utter failure. On his second attempt he ends up getting flour everywhere, including inside his boxers. He’s not sure how that happened, but he just has to live with it for a bit.

“Sylvain, why did you call me to ask for moral support?” Ashe is pretending to be miffed, but Sylvain knows he’s actually happy that this is happening and that Sylvain is asking him for help. “All you have to do is follow the recipe.”

“Is this man not your friend?” Petra says from somewhere near Ashe, and Sylvain grins hugely. “It is your duty to provide morally correct support.”

“Thank you, Petra,” Sylvain says loudly. “Ashe, provide me with moral support.”

Ashe sighs. “Petra and I have to go. We have a dinner reservation. But,” he goes on, and Sylvain stops mashing bananas for a second, “you’ll be fine.” He can almost hear Ashe smiling. “It’ll be fine.”

Sylvain finishes mashing bananas. He creams the sugar, butter, and eggs with the hand mixer he bought in lieu of an entire stand mixer. He sprinkles in cinnamon and milk, and stirs it all together.

“Good luck,” he says to the pan as he shuts the oven door. “Don’t fuck this up for us.”

He takes a shower while the bread is baking. He looks at his tattoo for a while in the mirror, thinking. He dries his hair. He heads back into the kitchen and breathes a sigh of relief: it smells _good,_ not burnt. 

In Sylvain’s dreams, Felix does not make banana bread, but he does blush a lot. The pink splotches on his chest, his ears, his cheeks, remind Sylvain of strawberries and cream, or the moment when you top a mountain of whipped cream with a cherry. He’s more receptive than Sylvain imagined. He likes cacti, maybe. He hates pineapple on pizza.

When Sylvain knocks on Felix’s door with a plant in one hand and a plate of freshly baked banana bread in the other, he’s just a dude, only this time he doesn’t feel so alone.

Felix opens the door. He takes one look at Sylvain and his offerings, and frowns.

“What are you, like a Jehovah’s Witness or something? Minus the Bible?”

“I wouldn’t be a very good missionary. I don’t think God likes me that much,” Sylvain says, shrugging. “But uh, these are for you.”

He holds out his hands, and Felix grudgingly reaches out to take the plant, then hugs it to his chest so it doesn’t slip. Sylvain watches him touch one its leaves gingerly, like it might explode at any moment.

“It’s fine for cats,” Sylvain explains. “I—looked it up. So you can put it wherever, indoors. It won’t do that well outdoors.”

Felix nods a little absently before glancing at the plate in Sylvain’s other hand. 

“Is that banana bread?” His frown deepens. “I’m not a huge fan of sweets.”

It’s Sylvain’s worst nightmare. He _knew_ this was going to happen, even if banana pollen doesn’t actually exist. He grips the plate and prepares to run away. He takes a breath— 

“You can come in and eat it here though,” Felix continues, and swings the door open wide.

For a split second, Sylvain sees the inside of Felix’s apartment, and it’s like entering Narnia—he doesn’t know where to look first. There’s a dark leather couch, a medium-sized television hanging on the wall, a glass coffee table. No books, but a display case with—swords, it looks like. 

And Rodrigue and Glenn are behind Felix, sitting quietly, bushy tails swishing. They’re looking at Sylvain with big yellow-green moon eyes. It’s like they’re asking him to make a move and make his way inside.

“Hey, uh, Felix,” Sylvain says, rushed again, because he can’t let this moment go but he knows he _has_ to say this. “You should know, I—I didn’t make this because we’re neighbors. I made it because—.”

He stops, faltering, and Felix shrugs. His face is a bright pink, and Sylvain knows that color is probably flushed all the way down through his ponytail. He probably looks the same way. Here they are, two dudes in a hallway, both blushing from head to toe. 

“I know,” Felix says, and tilts his head, beckoning Sylvain inside. “Come in.”


End file.
